I have a relationship to music from the early 90's that I am only just recently understanding. I love soul, funk, folk, blues, some classic rock, and alternative rock. But there are also songs by Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and No Doubt that I love in a way that feels so much more intimate than anything else that pops up on my driving playlist. I am sentimental about music from the early 90's even if I was not part of it, even if I don't always really "like" it. At first I thought that perhaps these were tones of home that I had subconsciously inherited from my early childhood. The thing is, I am not typically sentimental of my childhood. I am sentimental about my young parents, though. The romantic mythology of them and their youthful pursuits & personalities, and the poignant memories I have of them as adults emerging from their divorce, parents of young children...for some reason it is this that I believe I have some intangible nostalgia for. In a way, hearing these songs throws me in to a kind of fairy tale that my parents and my family told me about so frequently as a child.
These were fairy tales included but were not limited to tales of an unconventional, kind of unassuming friendship between my hopelessly romantic father and my mother, so young and rebellious. Both of them tell me stories so fondly of their younger years, both before and after they met- all of the meaningful mischief they got up to, strange roommates and parties, tales of how bewildered and at a loss their parents were trying to contain their unstoppable momentum towards living spontaneously.
I have never met anyone as nostalgic for the past as my parents. Constantly they are reminiscing on music from their young lives, taking me and my sister on tours throughout Calgary of their old apartments and haunts, telling us over and over the stories which link these things together and aspects of their personality which are tethered to these momentous images in their minds. The stories do not always add up in a logical sense. I could've sworn my dad told me a story about attending a prom or wedding in a red corvette listening to "Dont Dream Its Over" on some perfect starry night, but this also sounds completely made up. The way they talk of all of the road trips and things they got up to when they were together, you could've sworn it was a decade they had together before I was born. I remember feeling so confused and struggling to understand how two people could live in so many places throughout the city of Calgary in the span of a decade or so. Did they live in each place for 6 months or something? It will never make sense. The history which built my parents and exists as a kind of inherited nostalgia will never fully make sense to me. However, the prevailing theme and emotion of sweetness, mischief, and comfort is always there, and I always feel I am closest to it when songs like "One Headlight" play. Sometimes the stories weren't happy. Sometimes the discussion behind a song or place was sad or regretful. But even if they hadn't attached a story to a particular song, if it sounds like half-defeated angsty 90's, it strikes that chord in me as if for only a moment, I can be in that fairy tale with them.
I feel so proud to see them now, having been dozens of different people over the decades. My parents who once told me stories accompanying all of these songs from the 90's are completely different people now, and their nostalgia appears less potent than it once was. I am proud of them for this. Even if their all at once shared and separate nostalgia is such a huge emotional part of my sense of history and self, I am happy to see them freed from it.
Most people have parents who operated as a supportive unit, but I feel a unique and distinct pride in having grown up knowing my parents as separate and individual people- people with flaws, triumphs, and struggles they were dealing with and scrambling to work around while they were raising me. Though it was complicated at the best of times, traumatic at the worst, it was an undeniably humbling experience to realise so young that our parents are all people just as individually motivated and lost as the rest of us. While other people may not see this until they are also adults, I got to see it while I was young. My parents were broke, struggling from a recent divorce, and going through the trials of dating people while I was young. I grew up with a very interesting depiction of love, companionship, and what it means to be a parent. My idea of parenthood did not involve the kind of uniform approach that others saw- my parents often took completely different approaches and didn't always communicate. They were messy, separate, and had to sometimes expose us to the struggles in their personal lives that are so often shielded by the parenting partner in other families. It was interesting.
I think I am only now getting the full picture of what my childhood really was and where the renaissance of my parent's nostalgia comes in. I am not nostalgic for my childhood because it was very fragmented. But I am, and always will be, nostalgic for the unique perspective I got on my young floundering parents who took break at times to show their children what their short and potent history meant to them.
I always used to say that my mother has been 21 for decades now. Her social life and partying nature had been a constant and has only recently evolved. My father, in a similar but different way, had been stuck in a hopeless nostalgia for the past for decades as well, until recently when he decided to pursue the things it seemed like he had been missing in his life for years. Today, both of my parents have become significantly more relaxed but not the same way other parents their age have- they haven't "retired", I think they have let go of whatever it was holding them down. I am so proud of them and I feel so blessed to feel this pride. I don't imagine many people get to see their parents like this. I know that I used to be jealous of my peers who get to see their parents in love, but I also know that I get the very unique pleasure of seeing my parents blossom as individuals like they are today.
Though I do not buy in to spiritual feminism, some aspects of it are so ingrained in my fiercely matriarchal family that I can not resist. Sometimes, when people tell me how much I look like my mother, I like to think about stories of her when she was young and prone to adventure. When I found myself drawn to the hippie aesthetic, I couldn't help but wonder if it was part of my generational DNA. A few years ago I was examining a train map while I was in Edinburgh and I remember seeing Cornwall as a potential stop in my travels. Visiting Cornwall has always been on my mother's bucket list, another topic which my parents have shared with me throughout the years. I distinctly remember being hit with a sudden wave of emotion, realising how easily I could bring myself there and how in some small, hopelessly romantic way, I'd be bringing a little piece of my mother there. I didn't end up getting off at Cornwall. Only recently am I beginning to understand how sentimental I am about my family history.
Lately, I have been considering saving up for a year and not going anywhere in the spring so that I can afford flights to Switzerland. I can't explain why exactly, but some intangible force compels me to do so- something greater than the sum of my parts and the desire to see the Alps. Perhaps when I get there it will make sense to me the way it does when that song from Apocalypse Now plays on the radio.
These were fairy tales included but were not limited to tales of an unconventional, kind of unassuming friendship between my hopelessly romantic father and my mother, so young and rebellious. Both of them tell me stories so fondly of their younger years, both before and after they met- all of the meaningful mischief they got up to, strange roommates and parties, tales of how bewildered and at a loss their parents were trying to contain their unstoppable momentum towards living spontaneously.
I have never met anyone as nostalgic for the past as my parents. Constantly they are reminiscing on music from their young lives, taking me and my sister on tours throughout Calgary of their old apartments and haunts, telling us over and over the stories which link these things together and aspects of their personality which are tethered to these momentous images in their minds. The stories do not always add up in a logical sense. I could've sworn my dad told me a story about attending a prom or wedding in a red corvette listening to "Dont Dream Its Over" on some perfect starry night, but this also sounds completely made up. The way they talk of all of the road trips and things they got up to when they were together, you could've sworn it was a decade they had together before I was born. I remember feeling so confused and struggling to understand how two people could live in so many places throughout the city of Calgary in the span of a decade or so. Did they live in each place for 6 months or something? It will never make sense. The history which built my parents and exists as a kind of inherited nostalgia will never fully make sense to me. However, the prevailing theme and emotion of sweetness, mischief, and comfort is always there, and I always feel I am closest to it when songs like "One Headlight" play. Sometimes the stories weren't happy. Sometimes the discussion behind a song or place was sad or regretful. But even if they hadn't attached a story to a particular song, if it sounds like half-defeated angsty 90's, it strikes that chord in me as if for only a moment, I can be in that fairy tale with them.
I feel so proud to see them now, having been dozens of different people over the decades. My parents who once told me stories accompanying all of these songs from the 90's are completely different people now, and their nostalgia appears less potent than it once was. I am proud of them for this. Even if their all at once shared and separate nostalgia is such a huge emotional part of my sense of history and self, I am happy to see them freed from it.
Most people have parents who operated as a supportive unit, but I feel a unique and distinct pride in having grown up knowing my parents as separate and individual people- people with flaws, triumphs, and struggles they were dealing with and scrambling to work around while they were raising me. Though it was complicated at the best of times, traumatic at the worst, it was an undeniably humbling experience to realise so young that our parents are all people just as individually motivated and lost as the rest of us. While other people may not see this until they are also adults, I got to see it while I was young. My parents were broke, struggling from a recent divorce, and going through the trials of dating people while I was young. I grew up with a very interesting depiction of love, companionship, and what it means to be a parent. My idea of parenthood did not involve the kind of uniform approach that others saw- my parents often took completely different approaches and didn't always communicate. They were messy, separate, and had to sometimes expose us to the struggles in their personal lives that are so often shielded by the parenting partner in other families. It was interesting.
I think I am only now getting the full picture of what my childhood really was and where the renaissance of my parent's nostalgia comes in. I am not nostalgic for my childhood because it was very fragmented. But I am, and always will be, nostalgic for the unique perspective I got on my young floundering parents who took break at times to show their children what their short and potent history meant to them.
I always used to say that my mother has been 21 for decades now. Her social life and partying nature had been a constant and has only recently evolved. My father, in a similar but different way, had been stuck in a hopeless nostalgia for the past for decades as well, until recently when he decided to pursue the things it seemed like he had been missing in his life for years. Today, both of my parents have become significantly more relaxed but not the same way other parents their age have- they haven't "retired", I think they have let go of whatever it was holding them down. I am so proud of them and I feel so blessed to feel this pride. I don't imagine many people get to see their parents like this. I know that I used to be jealous of my peers who get to see their parents in love, but I also know that I get the very unique pleasure of seeing my parents blossom as individuals like they are today.
Though I do not buy in to spiritual feminism, some aspects of it are so ingrained in my fiercely matriarchal family that I can not resist. Sometimes, when people tell me how much I look like my mother, I like to think about stories of her when she was young and prone to adventure. When I found myself drawn to the hippie aesthetic, I couldn't help but wonder if it was part of my generational DNA. A few years ago I was examining a train map while I was in Edinburgh and I remember seeing Cornwall as a potential stop in my travels. Visiting Cornwall has always been on my mother's bucket list, another topic which my parents have shared with me throughout the years. I distinctly remember being hit with a sudden wave of emotion, realising how easily I could bring myself there and how in some small, hopelessly romantic way, I'd be bringing a little piece of my mother there. I didn't end up getting off at Cornwall. Only recently am I beginning to understand how sentimental I am about my family history.
Lately, I have been considering saving up for a year and not going anywhere in the spring so that I can afford flights to Switzerland. I can't explain why exactly, but some intangible force compels me to do so- something greater than the sum of my parts and the desire to see the Alps. Perhaps when I get there it will make sense to me the way it does when that song from Apocalypse Now plays on the radio.
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